Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, and the Wachowskis on Cloud Atlas, the Most Complicated Film at the Toronto Film Festival

To understand how complex the nearly three-hour Cloud Atlas is, look no further than the credits. Tom Hanks plays six different parts including a gold chain-wearing African American. Among the multiple roles shared by each actor, Halle Berry plays a woman of German Jewish descent, Hugh Grant plays a body-painted cannibal, and Susan Sarandon plays a man that, she says, looks like a relative of Christopher Walken's. Further complicating matters, the adaptation of David Mitchell's novel spans hundreds of years non-linearly, including multiple locations, and several genres. And was written and directed by three people, Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) and Andy and Lana Wachowski (The Matrix). To discuss the sprawling, high-concept film that has divided audiences at the Toronto International Film Festival thus far, the directors joined Hanks, Berry, Sarandon, Grant, and other members of the cast at a press conference on Sunday.

According to Hanks, making the dizzying film was not as challenging as it sounds, at least for the actors, “This was a fully realized vision that was presented to us at the get go. [The writers/directors] had gone off and were sort of aiming for this piece of cinematic literature. All I really had to do was read the blueprint to see what was going to be expected of me.” [What was expected: to play parts ranging from a corrupt doctor sailing on the South Pacific to a character on a television movie that is being watched in a totalitarian future society.]
“And I said that sounds like all the things that acting and movies are supposed to be,” Hanks added. “It's going to be brilliant fun. It will be very very hard work on occasion. We will have to get through some sort of emotional trench to get to the moments highlighted in the book and the screenplay. I mean, shit, that's what I do for a living. So I jumped at it.”

Even working with multiple directors, Berry said, was not as difficult as one might expect. “What was so beautiful about it is that Lana and Andy speak as one person,” the Oscar winner said. “[The Wachowskis] finish each others' sentences. Their thoughts are the same. They've talked about this so long that their vision is clear and there is a safety that comes with it.”

Grant, meanwhile, joked that he did not look back on the experience so fondly. “I bitterly regret doing the whole film. I thought when they offered [me] these parts that I could show people that I have more strings to my bow than just one. a) I was wrong. And b) Just sitting in make-up, the plastic applied to your face for hours and hours. . . I have a very bad temper.”

As harmonious as the thirteen-member panel seemed on Saturday, Grant kidded that he tried to divide the cast while filming on multiple sound stages. “Everyone's talked about the nice atmosphere on set. I tried to make it nastier. I kept telling the American set that the German set was much more interesting and moving much faster. And vice versa. I never quite got the split that I was after.”